News Bytes: Xbox, data breaches, esports prizes

News you might have missed.

Although we’ve no word of an Australian launch, in the US Microsoft has launch its new Xbox One All Access service, an all-in-one subscription service that now includes hardware, net access and a library of games. Users can get an Xbox One S, plus the Xbox Game Pass, plus Xbox Live Gold for US$22 per month. To get the more powerful Xbox One X, they’ll need to fork out US$35 per month. There are no upfront costs, and if a user subscribes for at least two years they gain ownership of the console.

NSW curriculum to go under review

The NSW schools curriculum is set to undergo its first major revision in 19 years. The 18-month review of the curriculum actually started back in May, but the terms of reference have just been released. The review covers Kindergarten to Year 12, and will focus on future skills according to the man running the review, Professor Geoff Masters. “We need to be thinking about what the curriculum should look like for the future, we need to be ambitious and visionary…[We're] trying to design a system for our grandchildren, maybe even our great-grandchildren, that's where I'm focused, in the 2040s," said Masters.

A banner week for data breaches

It has been a big week in the world of data breaches. In Australia, security software vendor UpGuard revealed that staffing firm OneHalf exposed the records of hundreds of employees on a GitHub repository. In Canada, a breach of Air Canada’s mobile app has exposed the personal details of around 20,000 users of the app. Russian OCR software vendor Abbyy had similar issues, with a database flaw exposing up to 200,000 customer documents. And in China we saw perhaps the biggest hack of all, with the data of 130 million guests of China’s largest hotel company, Huazhu Hotels Group Ltd, being offered for sale on the dark web.

Australian wins $3 million esports prize

Esports is the real deal, if current prize pools are anything to go by. As part of the winning team at the International Dota 2 Championships in Canada, Melbourne teenager Anathan Pham took home more than $3 million of the total $15.3 million major prize. According to the West Australian, this puts him at number 19 on the list of Australia’s top-earning sports people. Pham is currently based in China, and was part of an international team that included four Europeans.